Tony Abbott risks holding a labrador puppy on his last day of campaigning. Photograph: Alan Porritt/AAP

This is what victory looks like: an exhausted man cuddling puppies and inspecting a guitar factory. There are no more votes to be mopped up. Tony Abbott is going through the motions.

As a backdrop for a last press conference of the campaign he brought the cameras to Melbourne's Box Hill and "Maton Guitars Hand Made for the World Stage".

Politicians come here. In the hall of fame that is the Maton foyer there's a snap of John Howard with Lee Kernaghan. It's not a meeting of minds. Joe Hockey finds a poster of the Seekers. "Look, Tony, your favourite band."

Hockey plays kid brother. He looks fresh but admits to exhaustion. What does victory feel like? "Climbing Kilimanjaro." The same thing day after day: a long, hard slog to the summit.

Abbott is in the factory talking politics with guitar makers over the roar of the sanding machines. It's hardly likely Abbott PM will miss the factory visits he has made his trademark. How many hundred has he done denouncing the carbon tax? Today he's not hands-on. They don't let him near the guitars.

His eyes are exhausted. His shoes need a polish. He's so tired he seems to be listening to his own voice as the lines come out of his mouth. He spares us nothing: the waste will end; the boats will stop; the carbon tax will be scrapped. He's word perfect.

But for a moment he drops the script. "The great thing about successful prime ministers is that at every stage of their public life they have grown into the role." At the back of his head since he was a schoolboy he has had the idea that power when it comes will transform him.

"If you look at people like John Howard; if you look at people like Bob Hawke; they certainly grew throughout their public life as opposition leader, as prime minister. Whatever faults and mistakes the pair of them might have made, by the time they were in the prime of their life as prime minister they were different, almost ennobled figures from those they had been quite a few years earlier.

"That's what high office does. It's a burden but it also does act to bring the best out of the better people who have got those jobs."

What makes next week, let alone next year, so peculiarly hard to predict, is this romantic notion that a better person will emerge once he gets there: a Tony Abbott that resolves the old contradictions between the principled Catholic and the ruthless populist who has got him where he will be tonight.

Unlikely as Australians might find the prospect, he sees nobility on offer.

At the Pedigree Pal guide dog breeding centre on the banks of the Yarra in Kew, Abbott is not welcomed as opposition leader. Those are the smiles, the turnout of the board plus all staff and a contingent of volunteers that greet a prime minister. All that's missing is the little flag on the car.

"These are all from the one litter, Janice?" asks Abbott, cuddling an eight-week old labrador pup for the cameras. There is a smell of dog piss in the air. No pups disgrace themselves in the arms of the politicians.

We fly to Richmond, west of Sydney. They are backburning in the Blue Mountains and a smoky sunset is beginning. On the military tarmac the press contingents pass each other. We're heading for drinks at Panthers leagues club. They are off to Brisbane to watch defeat.

Slowly through the haze comes Kevin Rudd's car, flag flying and soldiers saluting. The etiquette will be faultless to the end. But the man who clawed his way back to the front seat 10 weeks ago has only a few hours left.